Navigating Doubt: The Foundation of Our Salvation

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast,

where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

My name is Pastor Josh and I want to thank you for listening to

this podcast.

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen

you in the word of God.

Now come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has

for us here today.

Well, all right, we're going to go ahead and continue our Bible

study here in First John.

So if you have your Bibles, turn there with me.

First John, chapter five.

We left off at verse number 12 last week, and what verse number

12 was telling us is how we as humans can find life, not just life

that we talk about right now with living and breathing but everlasting

life.

And he's talking here in First John about having a, a knowledge

of who God is, but more than just a knowledge of who God is, having

a personal relationship with him.

And so the, the book of First John is all about fellowship, fellowship

with God.

And then when we have that relationship with God in our salvation,

it will be manifested by our fellowship with others, other believers.

And so fellowship with God and fellowship with others.

And so here in this passage, he's concluding his thoughts with

the understanding of reminding us who has that type of confidence,

who has that type of fellowship, who has that type of

hope.

And verse 12, he that hath the son hath life, and he that hath not

the Son hath not life.

So he makes it very clear that the person who puts his or her faith

in Jesus Christ and him alone for salvation is the one who has

received life.

If you want to cross reference that passage, you could look in the

Gospel of John.

It's amazing how the Gospel of John ties together right in with

first, second and Third John.

But if you look at the Gospel of John and you look at a John, chapter

one, verse number 12, we see the same reiteration of the fact

that those who believe, those who receive those are the ones who

are adopted into the family of God.

So for Gospel of John, chapter 1, verse 12.

John 1:12

But as many as received him to them gave he power to be the sons

of God, even to them that believe on his name.

And so it's this idea that it's not just somebody who has good

intentions.

It's not just someone who is a good person, who does good works

or goes to church or, or tries to give money to a good cause.

It says very clearly here in First John, those who can start in

that fellowship with God must start in faith.

Faith is the Starting point to having fellowship with God.

It's not the end because many of us believe that, hey, you know

what?

I've trusted in Jesus and now I'm good now.

I don't need to change anything.

That's, that's in our human nature, what we believe.

We believe sometimes, well, I've got my ticket to heaven now.

I can just coast.

But the Bible says no, there's something else.

Because now that we have faith in God, we have access to God.

Hebrews chapter four tells us that we have access to God in that

relationship.

And now it's that growth process.

So we have salvation that that starts that relationship.

And then we have something called sanctification, that is that

spiritual growth that happens after our justification, after our

transformation.

And so he says, he that hath the Son hath life, everlasting life.

You guys know John 3:16?

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,

that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting

life.

And so he's talking about not just having a good life now, even

though being a believer does bring confidence and does bring hope,

it doesn't necessarily bring good circumstances.

I wish I could tell you that if you trust in Jesus Christ today,

everything in your life is just become smooth.

It's going to be easy.

But that's not what the Bible teaches.

But the Bible doesn't teach that, hey, once I get saved, all

my circumstances will be okay.

But it does teach that once I'm saved and I have that relationship

with God, no matter what my circumstances are, I have hope in

him because of the confidence that I have in my everlasting life

and in his presence and his power and his provisions in my life

now as a child of the King.

So what we're looking at here tonight is a verse that I take is

one of my favorite verses.

Because this verse is a passage of scripture that we can

point people to to say that the Bible says that we can have confidence

in him.

We can know that we have everlasting life.

I don't know if any of you have ever talked to somebody and

maybe you were talking about eternal things, maybe you're talking

about salvation.

Maybe you were even trying to share the gospel with somebody.

And they said, well, how could I really know for sure if I'm going

to heaven?

How could I really.

No, I, I, I hope that I'm going to heaven one day.

I, I hope that God will smile upon me and, and forgive me of my

sins.

But I, I don't really know how we could know a hundred percent,

with 100% certainty that I'm going to heaven.

Well, verse 13 tells us in, in First John, chapter 5, these things

1 John 5 · chapter mention

have I written unto you.

And so he's referencing all the things that are here in First

John, all the things about who Jesus is, what he has done, what

it means to have faith in him.

And he says, these things have I written unto you that believe on

the name of the Son of God.

So he reiterates, this is written to Christians.

This is written to people who believe in God.

So we need to stop here.

This is not a confidence for every single person that walks this

earth.

This is, this is not a type of confidence that can be extended to

somebody who does not believe in Jesus who is living his or her

life in the flesh, living his or her life in rebellion.

And, and so he says this type of confidence that you're about to

hear about comes through those that believe on the name of the Son

of God.

And so John is basically expressing his confidence in God

and he says, this is my confidence in God, and this is the

type of confidence that you should have in God when you trust

in him.

And so he's stating a, a very plain message, and he's trying to

persuade the reader here that is, is.

Is believing in Jesus, that they can be confident, that they

can have assurance in what God has said when it comes to our salvation.

And so we need to hear the gospel message initially.

And I think a lot of times what happens with Christians is we

think that the gospel is for people who are not saved.

And once we're saved, now we don't need the gospel, but we need

to be reminded of the gospel on a regular basis.

Even if we've been saved for 50 years, we need to be reminded

of the gospel.

Why?

Because sometimes we're tempted to doubt things about God's

word.

Sometimes we're tempted to doubt, maybe you've never doubted

this, but some people have.

They've doubted their salvation.

They've doubted if they've done enough.

They've doubted if they've lost it.

They've doubted if this sin has caused a division between God

and, and man.

And so what we see here in this case is that he says, no, remember

what your salvation is based off of.

Your salvation is not based off of your good works.

You were not saved by your good works, and you don't keep your

salvation by your good works.

You're not saved by being a person who is a member of A church,

you're saved through faith in Jesus Christ.

And so John's confidence here is the confidence that all believers

should have.

And he wants us to know that we have eternal life.

Remember that word confidence.

We're going to talk about that here in a few minutes, but remember

that word confidence, because we're going to come back to that.

But he says, these things have I written unto you that believe on

the name of the Son of God that ye may know that ye have eternal

life, that ye may know that ye have eternal life.

So he says, it's not a guessing game, it's not a wish.

It's not crossing my fingers and hoping.

By the way, when the Bible uses the word hope, it's not talking

about crossing our fingers and saying, well, maybe this is going

to happen.

Because in, in our English language, when we use the word hope,

sometimes there's a lack of certainty, like, I hope that it doesn't

rain tomorrow, and it may rain or it might not rain, depending on

the weather forecast.

And sometimes that's wrong.

Actually, most of the time the weather forecast is wrong.

And so we can have hope in something in this world.

And that we understand means like, well, maybe that will happen,

maybe that won't happen.

But biblical hope, if you dig deeper into the meaning of biblical

hope, it's a confident expectation that God is going to

keep his word.

A confident expectation that God is going to keep his word.

So when we say that we have hope in God, what we are basically

saying is this.

We confidently believe that God is going to do what he says he

will do.

And so he says these things, I write to you so that you can have

confidence in God.

Now, that word confidence is a word that we get in our English language

from a Latin word.

Two words, confide, con, meaning with fide, meaning faith.

It essentially means to be with faith, to live with faith, to

stand in our faith.

And so he says, here, I've written you these things, not so

that you can just read it and check a box, but I've written this

to you so that you can come back to it and have confidence when

you're tempted to doubt, when you have.

When you have those feelings.

And by the way, sometimes feelings will dictate our.

Our beliefs, sometimes feelings will dictate our emotions.

And sometimes our feelings will tell us.

Though feelings are valid, feelings aren't necessarily objectively

always true.

And sometimes circumstances can happen to drive our feelings

to a place where we're doubting whether or not God loves

us or whether or not God is even there or whether or not we're

even saved.

And so what he's basically telling us in this passage is this.

Don't go by what the world is telling you.

Don't go by what your flesh is telling you.

Don't even go by what your heart is telling you.

Because a lot of people will say this, well, just trust your heart.

What is your heart telling you right now in this moment?

And that sounds good.

That sounds like a good tagline for a movie.

Trust your heart.

But the Bible says in the book of Jeremiah that your heart is desperately

wicked.

It will deceive you because it's made of flesh.

And so what do we go to for our confidence?

What do we go to when we're tempted to doubt, when we're tempted

to be confused?

We go back to the Word.

We go back to the objective truth that never changes.

We, we.

We go back to God and His power.

And we realize that God never fails.

We realize that God is not going to separate us from his love.

We realize that God is never going to leave us nor forsake us.

And so what he says here is this.

Go back to what is written.

Go back to the Word for your confidence.

If any of us here or those that are watching online have been

tempted to doubt your salvation, don't go to your feelings

right now.

Don't go to your circumstances.

Go to what you put your faith in.

In the initial part, what was the initial thing that saved you?

Faith in Jesus Christ.

For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves.

It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.

And so what we can see here is this.

He's essentially reminding the believer that our salvation does

not depend on us.

Our salvation depends on what Jesus Christ has done for us.

And so we can know that we have assurance.

Because when we trust in Jesus, we trust in the One who always

keeps his word, the One who is all powerful, the One who knows all

things.

If I'm trusting in myself for my salvation, of course I'm going

to doubt it.

If I'm trusting in myself for clarity and for truth and for power

and for whatever we might be needing in our life, eventually my

well is going to run dry.

Eventually my gas tank is going to be on E. And eventually

I'm going to stop and I'm going to be stuck and I'm going to

be in a place to doubt God when really I should be doubting

myself and relying on God more.

There's a passage of Scripture that I really was meditating upon,

during, as.

As some of you know, some of you don't know, almost two years

ago when our son was born, there was a lot of difficulty with

that, and I felt powerless.

And, and the reality is, is that I really was powerless prior

to my son being born.

I realized that now, but at some degree, I thought that I had

control.

And, and I think I've been thinking about that word control

a lot recently because all of us to some degree, want to have some

type of control over something in our life, and some people actually

take it even too far, and they want to control every element of

their life.

And, and as a believer, I think that we have to rethink what

that word control is all about.

Because for me, I might be under the illusion that I am under

my own control and that I do have all things handled, and I do

have everything going the way that I think it should go.

But that's sometimes an illusion when we are.

God opens our eyes to really what the truth is and that he is

in control and that when we're powerless.

So, so when I felt powerless, I was.

I was struggling with that.

I said, lord, why do I feel powerless?

Why do I feel like I'm lost?

Why do I feel like you've pulled your hand off of me?

And what, what really God spoke to me through His Word was

this.

It was this idea that I am powerless.

And when I try to control something with my powerlessness,

I'm going to find doubt, I'm going to find hopelessness.

I'm going to find confusion.

But when I realize that I have completely lost control, but God

can take control.

We see this amazing thing happening, and, and we see it in

Second Corinthians, chapter nine.

And, and I think that it's something that.

And I think that it's something that we should all see

in our own life.

And, and, and I think that as a believer, I, I struggle sometimes.

And I think if we're all honest, we all struggle with this

sense of, like, I, I feel powerless.

I, I don't feel like I know what's going on.

Like, look at the news.

Like, some of us are just like, what's going on?

It just seems like.

Seems like the whole world is burning up.

And I, and I agree with that.

I think.

I think that there are points in our.

Our life that we have to realize that there is around us,

circumstantially speaking, a lot of things going on that we can't

explain, that we can't control.

I said second Corinthians, chapter nine.

I meant second Corinthians, chapter 12.

2 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

And you go to verse number nine.

And if you know the context of this passage of Scripture, Paul is

talking about a thorn in his flesh, and he's asking God to remove

that thorn, to remove that circumstance.

And God answers him, but does not answer him the way that probably

he was praying for initially, because we know he was praying for

the thorn to be removed.

And sometimes that's how we pray.

And we're going to talk about prayer here in a minute, but we pray,

lord, get this away from me, because this is what's causing me

to struggle.

And sometimes God's answer is, well, it's not my will for that thorn

to be removed.

It's there for you to learn about your role in this relationship.

And in Second Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 9, this is God's

2 Corinthians 12:9

response to Paul.

When Paul is pleading with God to remove this thorn, he says, my

grace is sufficient for thee.

God says to Paul, my grace is sufficient.

All you need is my grace.

You don't need the thorn to be gone.

You might want the thorn to be gone.

What do you need?

You need my grace.

You need my presence.

My grace is sufficient.

If I pull that out of your life, nothing changes.

My grace is still sufficient because that removal of that thorn

would be his grace.

But even if God allows that thorn to still be in our life and

that struggle to be in our life, and that.

That problem in our life, whatever that problem might be that's

causing us to feel like we've lost control, he says, my grace is

sufficient for thee.

And then I read these words, and it cut me to the core when I

read these.

But it's true.

He says, my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength

is made perfect in weakness.

God says it's when you realize that you are powerless without him.

Because we're going to talk about the power that we do have.

Because, by the way, we do have power as believers, but it's

not our power.

So in our humanity, in our flesh, we are powerless.

But the Bible says it's in that moment when we recognize that

weakness where God can have his power be on display.

God says, my strength is made perfect in weakness.

And so it's when we relinquish our control and say, lord, I know

I'm not in control.

I. I know that I'm limited.

I know that I am going to lose my salvation if I could lose it.

And then that's the moment when God's power can rest upon us.

And we can be used by him through way of testimony, through

way of reaching people for.

For Christ, for way of being a.

A beacon of light to a dark world.

Because the world is looking for answers right now.

It's a reality.

The church is looking for answers, but we have the answer.

And sometimes the church is struggling with things and we need

to just go back to the truth.

We need to go back to the Word.

We need to go back to the gospel.

That's the answer for all of this.

And so the world is looking for answers.

And so what do we do?

We don't just complain about all the bad things going on.

We tell them we have hope in Jesus Christ.

We have everlasting life.

And so these things have I written unto you that believe on

the name of the Son of God that you might know that you have

everlasting life.

As Christians, we have to live like we know that we have everlasting

life.

If we act like we're not living for an everlasting life, what

are we going to be living for?

Well, if we're not living for everlasting life, we're living for

this life.

And if we're living for this life, this life is a.

Is a miserable place to live for.

If it's living for just getting more and more things.

You know, the classic adage is this, the one who dies with the most

toys wins.

I mean, that's a terrible way to live, right?

That's a terrible way to live.

I mean, it's nice to have things in this world.

And I don't think God is against us having things, but if

that's what we're living for, then we're missing the point.

And many Christians are living for the here and now only and missing

the hope that we have in eternity.

So it's easy to understand why a Christian who has hope in the everlasting

life will turn on the TV or the phone and see news in the world

and go, oh, no, the sky is falling.

Maybe even literally the sky is falling.

And now we have no hope.

And now we have to live.

And, and then what happens is, is when we live that way with no

hope, then we're living just like the world lives, and we're no

different than them.

And as Christians, we have to be the light.

The Bible says, be salt and light to a lost and dying world.

Why?

So that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which

is in heaven.

So living with confidence is not for me, even though that's what

we would.

Because selfishly, we think everything's about us, right?

But to live with confidence is not just for me, so that I can live

with peace, even though there is a blessing in that, but it's also

so that we can live confidently and boldly in front of

people for the cause of the gospel, so that people will see the

truth and that more people will have that hope and that confidence

in the Lord.

And so I want you to think about that here this evening.

Am I, as a believer who believes that I have everlasting

life, Am I living confidently?

Am I living with that eternal focus enough to say, no matter what

happens around me, God is victorious?

No matter what happens around me, God's going to get the glory?

And that's uncomfortable because we like things our way.

I don't like change.

I like things the way that they are, and I don't want that to

change.

I mean, it was a huge thing for us to move to Delaware.

That was huge.

Like, I.

That is not a natural thing that I would want to do.

I never want to move from Delaware.

I told someone recently, someone's like, don't you want to

move back to Florida?

I said, no, because you see how much is in my house.

I'd have to pack that all up.

I don't want to move for many reasons.

One of them is just that's an inconvenience.

I'm uncomfortable with change.

And so when changes happen around us, we can act a bunch of

different ways.

We can, you know, there's.

There's fight, there's flight, there's being petrified and just

not moving at all.

But what do we do?

We.

We don't allow the outward stimuli of the world and of our circumstance,

of our workplace, of our home, to dictate what's happening on the

inside with the confidence that we have in God.

And so going back to First John, Chapter 5, he very clearly

1 John 5 · chapter mention

says, here, I've written these things so that you can have confidence

to be with faith, to stand in the truth.

You ever looked at someone and said, I don't know how they have

that type of hope right now.

I don't know how they have that type of demeanor in the midst

of this difficulty.

Well, if they're trusting in Jesus Christ as their Savior, we

know how they can do that.

God is giving them grace, grace that we might not understand

in that moment because we're not going through it.

It's a unique grace to them in that moment.

And so when we see a situation of someone Going through such a hard

trial and, and then they keep their eyes on Christ.

That's a beautiful thing.

And that's an example of how God's peace and confidence can rest

upon someone's life.

And so that's what John is talking about here.

John says there is a full assurance in Jesus.

Not full assurance in myself, not full assurance in, in a church,

not even a full assurance in.

Like, for example, I want you to trust me as, as your, as a pastor,

as a man of God.

I want you to trust me.

I want my children to trust me.

I want my wife to trust me.

And I'm going to do everything I possibly can to prove that.

But realize, at the end of the day, a man is a man and every man

is flawed in every way.

And so what we need to see is this.

When we keep our eyes on a person outside of Jesus Christ, or

we keep our eyes on a program, or we keep our eyes on a movement,

or we keep our eyes on anything outside of Jesus, eventually

that will fail us.

Now, we hope that someone that we love doesn't fail us, but the

reality is, is that there is the probability that someone will

fail us.

And I've seen a lot of people, maybe you have as well, that have

walked away from church or walked away from the faith because

another human, another individual, either fell into sin

or wronged them.

And then there's that struggle of identifying that sin of that person

and, and then equating that to God.

But what we have to understand is that that person, even though

they sinned against me, and that's wrong.

And there's a whole other study that we could deal with when

it comes to forgiveness and restoration and justice and all of

that.

But at the end of the day, I cannot look at someone else's flaws

and then attribute that to God because God's word says that he is

perfect, that he keeps his word, and he always does.

So these things have I written unto you that believe on the name

of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life and

that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.

You might say what?

That kind of seems redundant.

What is he saying here?

Well, he says, we start our faith, we start our sanctification

path through believing on the name of the Son of God.

And how do we continue in on that?

We continue with believing on the name of the Son of God.

We must go back to that.

We have to go back to the well that never runs dry.

And so for a Christian, it's not just I believed in Jesus 20 years

ago and now I'm hoping everything's okay.

It's.

I believe in Jesus not only 20 years ago, but today, this very moment,

I'm believing in Jesus to keep my salvation, to keep me secure,

to hold me in his hand, to protect me from the evil one.

And the truth is, is that there's going to be times in our

life where God does allow temptations to come.

God's going to allow struggles to come.

God's going to allow us to deal with certain things.

And many times what we do is we think that that's God judging

us or God upset with us, but really, at the end of the day, it's

a test in many ways.

It's a test to see if we're faithful.

I see this with my own children.

I want to protect my children.

I never want to see my child hurt.

But I also don't have them walk around in a bubble wrap suit.

Okay?

Some of you say, well, we did that with our kids.

Okay, maybe that's a smart thing.

But the reality is, is I want my children to be able to experience

things.

And through their growth, there might be some pain, there might

be some struggles.

So I can't protect my children from all pain and struggles, but

I still want what's best for them.

And so God can protect us from struggles.

I mean, God is completely capable of never allowing us to go

through a hardship.

But the Bible says very clearly that it's through those difficulties

that brings confidence in him, brings assurance in him, bring, brings

growth.

And so he knows that we learn through those struggles.

And so it could be this that God would say, you know what, I saved

you.

Now I'm just going to leave you alone, figure it out, and one

day you're going to come back with me.

But no, look what the next verse says.

It says, and this is the confidence that we have in Him.

So he's not just saying have blind confidence.

He says, this is the confidence that we have in him, that

if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us.

So there's so much that we could say with this verse, but it's

saying that when we're walking in fellowship with God, we have that

personal relationship with him and we can ask him anything.

We can come to him for anything.

Now I used to read this and I used to think that I can ask him

anything and he'll give me every answer that I want in the affirmative.

But that's not what it says here.

It says if we if we are walking with him and if we have confidence

in him and if we believe in him, we have the access to ask anything

we want.

We, we, we, we have that throne room of grace that we're able

to enter because of the blood of Jesus Christ.

We had more time.

I would take you to Hebrews chapter four, and it speaks of we

can come in boldly into the throne of grace.

That just means confidently, meaning that we can have access to

God.

And it says that we can ask him for help in time of need, to

have mercy and grace in time of need.

That's that beauty of God being Abba Father and we being his

children and we can come to Him.

It doesn't mean that God's going to say yes to us every time

we ask him something that we want.

You know, God, I want this day to be selfishly.

I could ask him for, you know, I want, I want a million dollars

today.

Well, I might have a God's will for me today to have a million

dollars, but I could come to him and ask him that.

I have the access to ask Him.

The Bible talks all about the selfishness, selfish, sinful prayers.

But we go back here and he says, okay.

Then he says verse 16.

If any man sees, or, excuse me, verse 15.

And if we know that he hear us, so we have, we're confident that

he hears us.

We have to believe that he hears us.

Whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we

desire of Him.

Now you might say, well, Pastor Josh, I thought you said that

we, we can get, we, we don't get everything that we want.

Well, we see that other passages of Scripture where he speaks

to this idea that if we ask in accordance to his will, right?

So, so there's a specific way that we are supposed to pray.

And, and I think that that's sometimes one of the things that

we forget about is we pray for our, our will.

And instead of praying for our will, the Bible says, let's pray

for his will.

And the greatest example of that I, I believe is when Jesus is

in the garden and he's praying to the Father and he's asking the

Father for, you know, he says, let, if any, if this be possible,

let this cup pass, but then nevertheless, thy will be done.

And so in that case, if we were thinking from our terms, right,

if.

Did Jesus have access to the Father, we, we know, course he did.

And, and that's a whole other study for another day when we talk

about the Trinity.

But the reality is, is in that moment Jesus asked for that cup to

pass.

God's will was that it did not pass and that he would drink of that

cup.

And so, so technically God did not.

God the Father did not respond to Jesus in the way that he asked,

but Jesus said, nevertheless, thy will be done.

And so I'm not saying that that's something that we tag on to

the end of our prayers.

Well, nevertheless, I will be done.

But what I am saying is that as we become more and more aligned

with God in our lives, we become more in line with our desires

for what he wants for our life.

And so if God tells me no, it actually might be the best result

I've ever had.

I don't understand that sometimes.

I mean, there have been times in my life where I've prayed for

God to heal people and he has not healed them.

What, what does that mean?

Does that mean that I didn't pray hard enough?

I don't think so.

I think that God has different plans and God's plans are above my

plans.

And I don't know the answer to that.

And who am I to ever question God's goodness and his character?

But we go to that verse and he says, if we know that he hears us,

and we do know that he hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that

we have the petitions that we desired of Him.

I think that there's another passage of scripture that we could

equate to this.

In John 15, again, obviously the same human author and same spiritual

guide, obviously through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, John

John 15:7

15:7 says, if ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall

ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you.

But the caveat to that is that we have to be abiding in him and

abiding in his words.

We can't be living selfish flesh filled lives and just expect

God to give us everything that we want.

But when we're walking with God and we're desiring his will and,

and we pray in his will, he will answer our request.

He, he will answer those questions and those desires that

we have in our life when we're asking God's will.

Now the other side of this coin would be that God, God doesn't

want to be using us separate from Him.

He wants to be partnering with us.

And the verse that I think we could go to on that is second Corinthians,

chapter six, verse one, says, we then as workers together with

him, beseech you that you receive not the grace of God in vain,

meaning God wants to work alongside of us and God.

God could work without us.

The reality is, is that God doesn't need us.

The reality is, is that God could do all of his work without

us.

But God wants to partner with us.

And that sounds weird, and that's not a word that we use quite

frequently, partner with God.

But what it is is that God wants to use us.

He doesn't have to use us, but he wants to.

And so what we do is as, as believers is say, lord, how can I

be used by you?

What's your will in this situation?

And obviously, you know, the passage of scripture that speaks

to the idea that as God will give us the desires of our heart.

And that's a passage of scripture that gets skewed so often

and misused when it comes to prosperity.

Preachers that say, you know, if you just want a Ferrari and you

want it enough, just keep going after it.

Okay, I'm not saying that that's what it says, but my personal

belief on that is that God changes our desires to the things

that he wants for our life.

So if my desires are aligned with his desires, my, My desires

are always going to be filled because God's will is going to be

done.

And so when we see this passage of scripture, we, we have

to wrap our minds around a bigger picture.

And the bigger picture is, is that we are not the center of the

universe.

God is the focus.

And so when we ask according to God's will, when we pray.

And by the way, he's.

I believe he's specifically talking about if you go to John 15,

7, resting in his Word, resting in his will.

I believe that it's claiming the promises of God.

I believe we should pray the promises of God in accordance to

His Word.

What has God clearly stated in His Word?

That he's never going to leave us nor forsake us.

So we pray for God's presence.

We believe.

We.

We pray that God will keep his word.

When he says that He's Jehovah Jireh, the one who provides.

We claim His Word.

When it gets to a place in our life where we're feeling doubts in

our mind.

Remember the context.

It's the confidence of our salvation.

We go back to the confidence of God being the one who holds us

fast and not we ourselves holding ourselves fast.

And so I, I believe the context of this passage is this.

When we ask God according to his will, when we pray the promises

of God that we find in Scripture, we can have confidence

and we can pray in faith like so.

What it means is that we have to know the word of God.

We have to know what God has promised us.

Because we can't claim the promises of God unless we know the

promises of God.

And so I think that there's an emphasis upon knowing the word of

God, not just to have head knowledge, but to hide his word in

our hearts that we won't sin against Him.

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

So practically speaking, okay, and I'll.

I'll end it right here.

But practically speaking, what does this look like?

Like I'm sitting here.

Okay.

And circumstance.

A pops up, and that makes me nervous and I'm doubting something

about God.

What do I do?

Well, pray.

Bible says in James, chapter one, ask God for wisdom and he'll

give it to us liberally.

He will not hold it against us.

But pray what?

Well, pray.

Lord, help me.

Help me get out of this.

That's how I.

That's how I used to pray all the time.

Lord, help me get out of the situation.

Like I wanted to squirm out of every situation.

But now it's this.

I believe, biblically speaking, we should claim a passage

of scripture that God has promised in His Word and hide those

words in our heart so that we're able to go back to that well

that never runs dry in His Word, that it can be a lamp unto

our feet and a light into our path.

I believe it's God's Word that gives us that confidence.

The presence of God is there.

But how do we know about the presence of God without the word

of God?

How do we know about the love of God?

Even though the love of God is there, when you're a believer, the

love of God is there.

But how can we grow in our love for God?

How can we know more about the love of God through His Word?

How can we know more about our future as believers through His Word?

And so I think that what we're seeing here in this passage of scripture

is, yes, we, we have confidence.

But go back to verse 13.

These things have I written unto you.

So he says, I've.

I've written you these things so that you can go back and reference

these passages of scripture.

And so one commentator put it this way.

The most powerful prayers in the Bible are always prayers which

understand the will of God and ask him to perform it.

We may be annoyed when one of our children says, daddy, this is

what you promised.

Now please do it, man.

My son gets me on that.

My.

My oldest son gets Me on that all the time.

He's, dad, you said we were gonna go buy the ice cream shop after

this, and I.

Man, I thought he forgot.

He keeps me to my word, okay?

Micah keeps me to my word, and he will never.

He will not let me get away with it, okay?

And that frustrates me to no end because I'm like, man, he's.

I keep my word, but.

But I think on, like.

And that's my flesh.

That's my annoyance as a.

As a human.

God doesn't get annoyed with us when we say, keep your word, dad.

He.

That brings him joy because we're trusting in Him.

So.

So when we're going through that problem and we go, lord, you

said you'd be with me here.

That's not.

I don't think that's disrespect if it's not with a different

disrespectful spirit if you're believing in what he has said.

I believe in faith.

God is joyful.

And it shows that we're aligned with him, and it shows our

dependence in him that we take His Word seriously.

And so I don't think it's.

It's wrong to ask God for something that he hasn't specifically

promised in Scripture.

I don't think that's sinful.

But I do believe that we need to realize the specific promises

of God in context to the different things that we're dealing

with in our life.

Because God speaks to many things that most people, if they

would just go to His Word, would get the answers.

The problem is, is that we might even know what God's Word says,

but we aren't necessarily willing to believe it and to heed

it and to obey it and to apply it to our lives.

And so we'll stop there.

We'll stop in verse number 15.

Because actually, it starts with this idea that if we have confidence

in God, we will pray.

But secondly, if we have confidence in God, we're going to

pray for our failing and struggling brothers and sisters in

the fellowship.

Because remember, the theme of First John is fellowship with God,

fellowship with others.

It's always mirrored, okay?

My love for God is mirrored and displayed through my love to

others.

So if I trust God and pray to God for my needs, if I'm doing that

properly and healthily, my heart will then turn to praying for

my fellow believers that are struggling.

And we're going to talk more about that next time when we come

back, when we talk about that dynamic between our prayer life and

our love for others.

Because it's very hard to be mad at somebody and hate somebody

if you're praying for them.

I'm going to tell you, that's a.

That's a blessing for me.

Like, if I'm struggling loving somebody, I just start praying for

them.

And my heart turns over time.

And that's not my flesh.

My flesh wants to get even.

But the Spirit never says that.

The Spirit says, love, joy, peace.

It was that forgiveness, tender heart of forgiving one another.

And so we'll talk more about that next week.

But I think the answer to all of our.

I know the answer to all of our problems is found in Jesus Christ.

And the way that we find the truth of Jesus Christ.

The Bible says in Romans 10:17, faith cometh by hearing and

Romans 10:17

hearing by the Word of God.

So see it this way.

We have to overcome the struggles of this world with faith

in God.

And faith in God is seen through knowing him, and knowing

him is knowing him through His Word and knowing him through the

Spirit and knowing him through his guidance.

But you cannot say, well, I'm walking with God, but I'm not walking

in His Word.

You cannot say, I'm growing in the Lord, but I'm not growing in

His Word.

This is.

They're.

They're linked together.

They're linked together.

The Bible says all scripture is given by inspiration of God and

is profitable for doctrine, for proof, for correction, and for

instruction in righteousness.

And so I think that we need to understand the connection between

our relationship with God and our prayer lives and the word of

God.

They all need to be tied together and synchronized.

And we walk together with him on that.

So God has told us in His Word that we can know that we have everlasting

life.

If that's something that you're doubting or you're struggling

with, maybe you got saved a long time ago, but you're struggling

with this idea of like, does God still love me?

Is God still with me?

Did.

Did he truly save me?

Did he let go of me?

Is this world too far gone?

Is God going to lose?

Is.

Is.

Is evil going to win?

These are all questions that are real questions for us as human

beings.

But these things God has given us so that we can know that we have

everlasting life.

Those that believe on the name of the Son of God.

And so I trust that this evening, if that's something that

you're dealing with, that you're wrestling with or that someone

that you know is wrestling with, go to Scripture.

Or if you don't know the Scripture, go to someone who you

believe does know the scripture.

Okay.

Because the reality is, is that I could be sitting here and

I could say, lord, I know that you probably say something to me,

lead me to it, but there are people that are set up in our lives

that can get us a little faster to that passage of scripture.

It's okay.

It's okay to do that.

Because actually the Bible doesn't ever say.

Where does the Bible say to go?

It doesn't say to go to Google or nowadays chat, GBT or whatever.

The AI.

You know, everyone's doing that.

The millennials and younger.

That's all they can do is think about, you know, AI.

But.

And I'm not saying all is bad, but I'm just saying you gotta be

careful.

But that's not where Scripture tells us to go.

Scripture tells us to go to him for the first.

The first response is to go to the Lord and then his word.

And then the Bible does say in a, there's wisdom in a multitude

of counsel, right?

To go to someone that we trust and then that that's what God has

ordained.

So I encourage you to do that if that's something that you're going

through.

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church

podcast.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

You.

If you would like to find out more information about our church

or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org

or find us on Facebook or YouTube.

You can also email me directly at Josh Massaro, Middletown BaptistChurch.com

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Thank you so much.

God bless.

Have a wonderful day.